As to the cashier, he listened wonderingly, watching these strangers, who seemed determined to reinstate him in public opinion, and punish his enemies, while he himself stood by powerless and bewildered. What their motives for befriending him could be, he vainly tried to discover.
“I will tell you what I can do,” said Joseph after deep thought.
“What is it?”
“I can innocently walk out of the front door, and loaf along the street until I reach the Hotel du Louvre.”
“And then?”
“Dame! Clameran will come in and question Mme. Alexandre, whom you can instruct beforehand; and she is smart enough to put any sharper off the track.”
“Bad plan!” pronounced M. Verduret decidedly; “a scamp so compromised as Clameran is not easily put off the track; now his eyes are opened, he will be pretty hard to catch.”
Suddenly, in a brief tone of authority which admitted of no contradiction, the fat man said:
“I have a way. Has Clameran, since he found that his papers had been searched, seen Lagors?”
“No, patron.”